Biology

Spinda is a bipedal, panda Pokémon with rabbit-like features. Its eyes are made of two black spirals, which point in the opposite direction to each other. There is a similar swirling pattern on its ears. It has a small body with short stumpy arms and legs, and its coat is primarily cream-colored. Its arms are red and it has a red stripe bordering along the bottom of its belly, as well as two small spots on the soles of its feet. It has four spots, which can appear anywhere on its face and ears, with a fifth on the back of its head. These spot patterns are different for each and every Spinda.

It has dizzying, confusing, and scattering dance-like movements, which can be used for its former signature move, Teeter Dance, though it thinks it is walking in a straight line. These movements confuse its opponents and make it difficult for them to aim at it. It lives in the mountains.

In the anime

Major appearances

Spinda debuted in Going for a Spinda. Ash and his friends had to help a girl named Claire find a Spinda with a heart-shaped spot on its forehead. Brock, meanwhile, kept picking one up with a spot shaped like a broken heart, much to his displeasure.

In the TCG

In the TFG

Game data

NPC appearances

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: One day, a Spinda appears in Pokémon Square and collapses. When it regains consciousness, Spinda explains that it is giving up a long journey to find the Mirage Pokémon and hands its one clue, the Clear Wing, to the player. The player must then solve the Mystery of the Mirage Pokémon, which will reward him or her with the Rainbow Wing. Upon showing the Rainbow Wing to Spinda, it becomes happy and leaves Pokémon Square.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky: Spinda runs Spinda's café and takes over the juice bar. A Wynaut and a Wobbuffet also work at the café running the recycle shop. Later in the game, Project P is introduced. After it is introduced, occasionally when speaking to Wynaut the player may gain access to a dungeon normally accessed by selecting a job with ??? as the location or get a choice of more items in the recycle shop.

No two Spinda are said to have identical spot patterns on their hides. This Pokémon moves in a curious manner as if it is stumbling in dizziness. Its lurching movements can cause the opponent to become confused.

No two Spinda are said to have identical spot patterns on their hides. This Pokémon moves in a curious manner as if it is stumbling in dizziness. Its lurching movements can cause the opponent to become confused.

Trivia

In Pokémon Battle Revolution, Toxic is depicted as two purple orbs spinning around each other towards the target. However, when Spinda uses Toxic, the orbs travel erratically. The same animation is used for Carnivine.

Some of Spinda's Pokédex entries mention the odds of two Spinda having the same spot pattern as less than one in four billion. Since Spinda's spots are based on its personality value (a 32-bit number), a simplistic model would put the odds at 1 in 4,294,967,295, which is indeed smaller than one in four billion; however, it is actually possible for two personality values to produce spot patterns that are visually identical, so the real odds are somewhat higher.

Using this app, it can be found that two dots have 256 distinct locations, one dot has 254, and one dot has 237, counting all locations where the dot is entirely off-sprite as the same. This results in a total of 3,945,136,128 patterns. However, even this total is slightly too high, because if the upper left dot is far enough down and to the right, it can entirely eclipse the lower left dot, resulting in a few more patterns being indistinguishable. Compare, for example, 0x0E07F5FB and 0x0EF0F5FB.

Unlike other Pokémon with no gender differences, the Rotom Pokédex does not display a single model for both male and female Spinda, but rather a separate one for each.

Like Whirlipede, its base stat total might be based on the fact that it and Whirlipede usually spin in circles, which are 360 degrees.

Origin

Spinda's body structure is based on the giant panda with elongated rabbit ears, with its coloring close to that of a subspecies of giant panda, the Qinling panda. The different spot patterns may be a reference to red pandas, which also have their own unique facial markings.

Name origin

Spinda is a combination of spin (referring to its twirly eyes and ears and dizzy-seeming movement) and panda.

Patcheel may be a combination of patch (referring to its appearance) and reel (to stagger, as from dizziness).